Passionate Sage (36 page)

40.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1812,
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, II, 311; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, May 27, 1813,
ibid
., 325; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 11, 1813,
ibid
., 329.

41.
Adams to Richard Rush, October 8, 1813, Reel 95; Adams to Benjamin Rush, March 23, 1809,
Spur of Fame
, 137; Adams to Benjamin Rush, December 19, 1811,
ibid
., 198–99. For the most recent study of the impact of the War of 1812 on American culture, see Steven Watts,
The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820
(Baltimore and London, 1987), especially 28–42, for a discussion of Adams. For a comprehensive review of the causes and consequences of the war, see J. C. A. Stagg,
Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1738–1830
(Princeton, 1983). The most recent scholarly monograph, which tends to endorse Adams's assessment of policy mismanagement, is Donald R. Hickey,
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
(Urbana, 1989). Finally, there is the classic account by Henry Adams, now conveniently available in the Library of America edition,
History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
(2 vols., New York, 1988).

42.
Adams to John Quincy Adams, December 23, 1813, Reel 95; Adams to Benjamin Rush, August 17, 1812,
Spur of Fame;
Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 23, 1813,
ibid
., 276; Adams to Richard Rush, January 7, 1814, Reel 95.

43.
Adams to Mathew Cary, July 7, 1813, Reel 95; Adams to Richard Rush, December 12, 1813,
ibid.;
Adams to William Smith, November 20, 1814, Reel 122; Adams to Governor Plummer, December 4,
ibid
.

44.
Adams to James Madison, November 28, 1814,
Works
, X, 106; Adams to John Quincy Adams, February 25, 1815, Reel 122; Adams to John Quincy Adams, March 11, 1815,
ibid.;
Adams to Richard Rush, October 12, 1814,
ibid.;
Adams to Horatio Gates Stafford, June 4, 1815,
ibid
.

4.
The American Dialogue

1.
Adams to Thomas McKean, June 21, 1812,
Works
, X, 16; Adams to Robert Fulton, June 23, 1813, Reel 95; Adams to Benjamin Rush, November 29, 1812, Reel 118.

2.
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, preface, for the statistical evidence on the correspondence; Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 3, 1813,
Old Family Letters
, 338.

3.
For the most convenient summary of the history of the correspondence and public reaction to it, see
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, I, introduction.

4.
Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 11, 1810,
Spur of Fame
, 44; Adams to John Quincy Adams, July 15, 1813, Reel 95; Adams to Benjamin Rush, March 4, 1809, Reel 118; Adams to William Cranch, May 23, 1801, Reel 118. Adams's critique of Jefferson's leadership as president has found a modern voice in Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson,
Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1990)

5.
Adams to Colonel Ward, January 8, 1810, Reel 118. For the most psychologically sensitive account of the Sally Hemings accusation by modern historians, see Winthrop Jordan,
White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812
(Chapel Hill, 1968), 461–69.

6.
The best secondary account is Merrill D. Peterson,
Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary Dialogue
(Oxford, 1978); Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 6, 1785,
Adams-Jefferson Letters
, I, 28; see also Joyce Appleby, “The Jefferson-Adams Rupture and the First French Translation of John Adams' Defence,”
American Historical Review
, LXXIII (1968), 1084–91; on the fear of the Hamilton wing of the Federalists that Adams and Jefferson might form a political alliance in 1796, see Charles,
Origins of the American Party System
, 54–74; Fisher Ames to Rufus King, September 24, 1800,
Life and Correspondence of King
, III, 304.

7.
Adams to William Cunningham, January 16, 1804,
Correspondence Between Adams and Cunningham
, 7–9; Adams to Benjamin Rush, April 18, 1808,
Spur of Fame
, 107–08.

8.
Adams to Benjamin Rush, December 21, 1809,
Old Family Letters
, 249. Jefferson had already made an indirect and unsuccessful attempt to resume the friendship in 1804. He wrote to Abigail in response to her letter consoling him on the recent death of his younger daughter. Jefferson conceded that Adams's “midnight appointments…gave hurt,” but claimed he was willing to forgive. But the gesture went unanswered by Adams, who was still too raw and resentful in 1804. See Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, June 13, 1804,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 270.

9.
Adams to Benjamin Rush, August 31, 1809,
Old Family Letters
, 246; Adams to Benjamin Rush, July 3, 1812,
ibid
., 297–98.

10.
Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, December 5, 1811, Paul Leicester Ford, ed.,
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1892–99), IX, 300. See also Lyman H. Butterfield, “The Dream of Benjamin Rush: The Reconciliation of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson,”
Yale Review
, 40 (1950–51), 297–319.

11.
Adams to Jefferson, January 1, 1812,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 290; Adams to Benjamin Rush, February 10, 1812, Reel 118; Donald Stewart and George Clark, “Misanthrope or Humanitarian? John Adams in Retirement,”
New England Quarterly
, XXVIII (1955), 232, for the Adams remark about “a brother sailor.”

12.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, January 21, 1812,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 291–92.

13.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 3, 1812,
ibid
., 295; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, April 8, 1816,
ibid
., 467; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 3, 1816,
ibid
., 471.

14.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, January 21, 1812,
ibid
., 291–92; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 3, 1812,
ibid
., 295; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 24, 1821,
ibid
., 576.

15.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 21, 1812,
ibid
., 304, and note by Cappon.

16.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 11, 1819,
ibid
., 542; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, July 9, 1819,
ibid
., 543–44; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 21, 1819,
ibid
., 545; Adams to Francis Vanderkemp, August 21, 1819, Reel 124.

17.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, August 10, 1815,
ibid
., 452–53; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1813,
ibid
., 349.

18.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 9, 1813,
ibid
., 350.

19.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 14, 1813,
ibid
., 330; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1814,
ibid
., 346–47.

20.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 18, 1817,
ibid
., 515; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 18, 1813,
ibid
., 361–62; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, February 2, 1816,
ibid
., 461.

21.
Peterson,
Adams and Jefferson
, 8–9; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, April 8, 1816,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 467.

22.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, May 6, 1816,
ibid
., 472–73.

23.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, August 1, 1816,
ibid
., 483; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 3, 1816,
ibid
., 487–88; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, October 14, 1816,
ibid
., 490.

24.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 25, 1813,
ibid
., 409; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815,
ibid
., 446; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, September 30, 1816,
ibid
., 489; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1813,
ibid
., 358.

25.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, August 20, 1821,
ibid
., 574; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, September 12, 1821,
ibid
., 576.

26.
Merrill D. Peterson,
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation
(New York and Oxford, 1970), 952; Thomas Jefferson to Adams, August 15, 1820,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 566–67.

27.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, June 27, 1813,
ibid
., 335–37.

28.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 30, 1813,
ibid
., 347; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 9, 1813,
ibid
., 351.

29.
The quotation is from Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerchevel, July 12, 1816, Ford, ed.,
Writings
, X, 37. This is not the place to attempt an exhaustive account of the many valuable works on Jefferson's political philosophy, which, like Jefferson the man, has attracted countless interpreters. Adrienne Koch's
The Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1943) is still a helpful guide. Richard K. Matthews,
The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View
(Lawrence, 1984), and Harold Hellenbrand,
The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson
(London and Toronto, 1990), are the newest books on the topic. My own interpretation is closest to Joyce Appleby, “What Is Still Living in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson,”
William and Mary Quarterly
, 3rd Series, XXXIX (April 1982), 287–309. On the history of popular sovereignty as an idea or, if you will, a fiction, see Edmund S. Morgan,
Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America
(New York, 1988).

30.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 13, 1813,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 355–56.

31.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1815,
ibid
., 456.

32.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 16, 1816,
ibid
., 500–01; on Tracy's book, see Adams to Jefferson, February 1, 1817,
ibid
., 506–07.

33.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 9, 1813,
ibid
., 351.

34.
Modern-day historians and political scientists have been less interested in Adams's psychological reflexes than the intellectual implications of his political vocabulary. His obsession with aristocracy, in this view, was merely part of a larger commitment to classical categories of analysis that had become anachronistic in the emerging democratic culture of post-revolutionary America. The seminal account of Adams as an attractive anachronism, rooted in the classical politics of pre-modern America, is Gordon Wood's
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787
(Chapel Hill, 1969), 567–92. I am trying to argue that Adams had several piercing insights into the forces shaping American politics and society
precisely because
he refused to accept the modern vocabulary of Jeffersonian democracy. Wood implicitly acknowledges this in his treatment of Adams, and explicitly does so at the end of the chapter cited above: “For too long and with too much candor he had tried to tell his fellow Americans some truths about themselves that American values and American ideology would not admit.” Precisely. More on this important theme follows in chapter 5 below.

35.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 9, 1813,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 351–52; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Aug [14?], 1813,
ibid
., 365; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 19, 1813,
ibid
., 409.

36.
In the margins of his copy of Harrington's
Oceana
, Adams wrote: “The controversy between the rich and the poor, the laborious and the idle, the learned and the ignorant, distinctions as old as the creation and…grounded on unalterable nature…will continue, and rivalries will spring out of them.” See Haraszti,
Prophets of Progress
, 34–35.

37.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 13, 1813,
Adams-Jefferson Correspondence
, II, 355.

38.
Thomas Jefferson to Adams, October 28, 1813,
ibid
., 387–92.

39.
Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 15, 1813,
ibid
., 400; Adams to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814,
ibid
., 437–38.